COP22 delves into the climate change afflicted food security

Food security is on the table at the global climate change conference, COP22 which is going on in the city of Marrakech, Kingdom of Morocco.

Agriculture, together with forestry and fisheries, is the sector most endangered by climate change and if this persists, the production of food will be greatly affected. Simultaneously, the said sector is also a contributor to climate change as it is the fifth producer of the world’s greenhouse gases.

On the side note, the Council on Arab World Relations with Latin America and the Caribbean (CARLAC) has joined the bandwagon to fight food scarcity and set the environment free from greenhouse gases. The organization is promoting their one-day side event of the COP22 entitled “Low Carbon Renewable Energy: Lessons from MENA and Latin America Regions”.

The side event which is co-organized by Abu Dhabi-based Masdar, the OCP Policy Center, FGV and School of Public Policy will open the 10th of November 2016 in Bab Ighli, Green Zone, City of Marrakech. The discussion will be focusing on the importance of using clean energy coming from renewable source and its advantages as an alternative to fossil fuels.

The Finance Officer and Founding Member of CARLAC, Mohamed Dekkak, along with the other members of the organization, calls for the environmental groups, the tycoons, companions and field specialists to come and take part in the event.

It must be noted that CARLAC is organized and formed to define supplementary means to create suitable setups to focus on a broad series of conferences and joint cooperation, particularly between the Arab World, Latin America and the Caribbean.

According to the report of the United Nations, the eradication of hunger and poverty by 2030 at the same time dealing with the threat of climate change will require a thoughtful transformation of food and agriculture systems globally. A makeover in the sectors of agriculture is crucial to attend to climate change for revision and alleviation and is also imperative to fight hunger, rural poverty, and water scarcity. Protection of the sectors extends substantial advantages and prospects for maintaining the natural resources.

During the COP21 summit in Paris last year, nations completed unparalleled assurances to familiarize with and lessen the harmful effects of climate change. It facilitated greater local input through nationally determined contributions or NDCs which helps agriculture, together with energy, to become among the largest sectors in the upcoming climate talks.

The agreement identifies the major precedence of protecting food security and stopping hunger, and the actual susceptibilities of food production methods to the antagonistic effects of climate change. This is greatly observed in country pledges where the agricultural sectors are noted to be a main concern.

The other purpose of the COP22 discussions is to make good on last year’s drive to fight global warming in different ways. Agriculture is part of the subjects that must be discussed. When the City of Marrakech welcomes the world’s environmental actors and decision-makers later this month, one of the main subjects to be discussed is food security and its current standing in the midst of risky rainfall instabilities.

The said talks will be focusing on Africa, as large part of its population is working in a small-scale agriculture that depend greatly on old-style rain-fed methods. However, the farms often receives irregular rainfall patterns resulting to poverty and hunger of millions.

Transformation to supportable agriculture will entail customized resolutions and an empowering environment, resources and time. The world’s key food producers contain about 500 million smallholders and family farmers involved in a diversity of farming systems and environmental circumstances.